August Project Day 12: What’s for dinner?

It seems a lot of my posts lately revolve around food.  Well…whatever.

After last night’s feast – OH!  My friend Hanna wants to know what we had, so I’ll take a minute to tell you.

We had three khoreshes.  A khoresh is basically a stew.  It’s usually meat and vegetables and/or fruit in some sort of sauce, and you serve it over chelow, which is basmati rice that has been washed, cooked, drained, and then placed back in the empty pot with some oil and saffron.  You have to cover the pot with a dish towel and put the lid on tightly.  The rice sits over low heat for over an hour, and all of the moisture is steamed out, creating fluffy rice with a yummy, crunchy crust on the bottom called tah dig.  (Unless, of course, you’re me and you leave the heat up too high, burn your tah dig (it was black) AND discover that the source of that “on fire” smell was actually coming from one of your favorite dish towels.  Ah well.)  You can contrast this rice to Asian rice, which is usually sticky.  It’s sticky from the starch; that’s why you wash the basmati before you cook it.  Agitating the grains gets them to release their starch, so you end up with nice, dry rice.

The first khoresh was ghormeh sabzi.  It’s a puree of spinach, parsley, leek, and fenugreek to which you add beef, onion, kidney beans, and dried limes.  If ghormeh sabzi is too difficult or intimidating to say, you can do like I do and refer to it as “the green stuff.”

Ghormeh Sabzi

(By the way, I have no idea who took these pictures, but thanks for taking them!!!)

The second khoresh was khoresh-e loobia sabz.  This one has beef, onion, and green beans in a tomato sauce spiced with garlic, cinnamon, turmeric, saffron, and lime juice.  Unfortunately, I don’t have any pictures of this dish, but the general consensus was that it “tastes like Christmas.”  I’m pretty sure that’s the cinnamon talking!

Our final dish was khoresh-e bademjan.  It’s similar to the loobia sabz, but I like it better.  It’s beef, onion, and eggplant in a tomato sauce with saffron, turmeric, garlic, and lime juice.  It turned out really well!

Khoresh-e Bademjan

These dishes were served with two different kinds of mast-o-khiar.  This is a yogurt sauce made with yogurt and cucumber; one also included dried mint, and the other had dried dill.

And, of course, we had lots of pita!

Now, going back to what I actually wanted to discuss today: After last night’s feast, I find myself tapped out of dinner ideas.  Soooo…

Do you have a favorite go-to recipe?  What kinds of foods do you fall back on when you need something quick and easy?  What’s for dinner at your house tonight??